Counterfeit Drugs in America: The Empire Strikes Back

The Pharmaceutical and Research Manufacturers Association of America responds to a Canadian online pharmacy's claim that the U.S. has a major problem with counterfeit drugs within their own borders.

However, their response was hardly reassuring as you can see below.

"Alan Goldhammer, PhRMA`s associate vice president for regulatory affairs, told United Press International that information about the level of counterfeiting in the United States is difficult to come by.
'I don`t know that anybody has, as far as I know, published statistics in that area,' Goldhammer said. 'I`m not sure that information exists,' he added."

And yet the FDA estimates that 35 million prescriptions were filled with fake drugs last year in the U.S.

The spokesman for PhRMA went on to say...

"...when new FDA regulations go into effect in December requiring drug distributors to provide documentation of the chain of custody of medications, Canadian firms would be unable to comply.
'I don`t know how any of these Internet sites could be in compliance with that,' he said, noting that they have to provide documentation tracing the source of their drugs back to a U.S. manufacturer."

In other words, he admits that the regulations governing drug distribution in the States will continue to be ineffective until the new legislation takes effect in December 2006. Well, that is good news!

As for Canadian pharmacies documenting the source of drugs back to the U.S., that is a red herring. Drugs sourced from reliable countries such as Canada, western Europe, Israel, Australia and New Zealand are not the issue. These countries already have excellent drug distribution legislation that keeps counterfeit medications off the market and out of the supply chain. What the PhMRA is really trying to say is "Buy American". Very patriotic to be sure, but not very practical when the pharmaceutical business is international.

In this case, 'Buy American" translates into "Support your local monoply!"

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